KUALA LUMPUR (June 10, 2010): A Singapore lawyer is here to appeal to Malaysians to save a convicted drug trafficker on death row as he claims the Singapore cabinet had stated he should hang even before he had a chance to present his clemency petition.
Yong Vui Kong, 22, from Sandakan, was sentenced in January 2009 to hang for trafficking in 47gm of heroin. He was 19 when he committed the offence.
At a press conference at the Bar Council here today, Yong's lawyer, M. Ravi, said Article 22(p) of the Singaporean Constitution stated that it was the president of Singapore and not the cabinet who decides on clemency matters.
Ravi said he challenged the mandatory death sentence in Singapore's Court of Appeal as a "cruel and unusual punishment" after obtaining a stay two days before Yong's scheduled execution.
He said that a few days before the court was to decide, Law Minister K. Shanmugam issued a statement, mentioning Yong by name. In the statement, Shanmugam said if Yong was granted clemency, it would send a signal to drug barons to use youths or mothers of young children to carry out their activities.
"The reason I have come to Malaysia is to ask for your help in making it clear to the Singapore government that you will not tolerate the execution of a Malaysian boy because he has been denied an opportunity to persuade the president to grant clemency," Ravi said. -- theSun
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51824
ReplyDeleteThe mandatory element of the death penalty removes discretion from judges and grants it to the state, and this is unconstitutional, Madasamy told IPS in an interview in this capital. "The state is the judge and executioner."
"The power to hang has been given to the state by taking away the discretion from the judges. Mitigating circumstances are ignored," said Malaysian Bar Council (MBC) president Ragunath Kesavan.
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/06/malaysian-law-ministers-puzzling-about-turn/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+theonlinecitizen+(theonlinecitizen)
ReplyDeleteHowever, this latest news that the Law Minister no longer is interested in meeting with Mr Ravi comes as a great disappointment to Mr Ravi. It would seem that the Malaysians would no longer support Mr Ravi’s call to bring the matter to the International Court of Justice (CJ).
“Yong Vui Kong has another avenue which is the ICJ, which is now closed on him,” said Mr Ravi. He is disappointed that the Malaysians are not even interested in finding out about the details of Yong’s case. This is a marked contrast to how the Malaysian government went all out to plead for the life of Umi Azlim Mohamad Lazim. Lazim, a university science graduate from a poor Malay family of rice farmers, admitted to carrying 2.9 kilograms of heroin in her luggage when she was arrested at China’s Shantou airport in 2007. (See here and here.)
The case generated much public attention and it was reported that: “Politicians have set aside their differences to halt Lazim’s execution. The ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and its rival the Islamic fundamentalist Pan Malaysian Islamic Party are even vying in their efforts.”
China eventually commuted Lazim’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
Some have questioned if the government is discriminating against Yong Vui Kong. (Read here)
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/7/6/nation/6613620&sec=nation
ReplyDeleteThe Foreign Ministry will write to the Singapore government to plead for clemency for Sabahan Yong Vui Kong who was sentenced to death last year for drug trafficking.
“We sympathise with what had transpired and will do everything possible within our powers to solve the issue,” Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman told reporters at the Parliament lobby yesterday.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/singapore-arrests-uk-author-on-defamation-charge/
ReplyDeleteSINGAPORE, July 19 — Singapore police have arrested a British author on charges of criminal defamation and contempt of court, a day after he launched a book on death penalty in the city-state.
The arrest was made pursuant to a report that was lodged by the government’s Media Development Authority on Friday, the Singapore police said in a statement.
Alan Shadrake, has also been served with an application by the attorney-general for “an order of committal for contempt of court,” it said.
Shadrake, who was arrested at a hotel yesterday, remained in police custody as the investigation was ongoing, a police spokesman said.
In an email to Reuters on July 3, Shadrake called himself a “British freelance journalist and author,” who had planned to launch his latest book “Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock” in the city-state two days ago.
The Straits Times newspaper reported on its website on Sunday that Shadrake was 75 and his 219-page book was filled with accounts of high-profile cases in Singapore involving the use of the death penalty. It also included interviews with the city-state’s former executioner.
Singapore imposes a death penalty for crimes such as murder and a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking.
The crime rate on the island nation of 5 million people is among the lowest in the world. — Reuters
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/legal/general_news/glimmer_of_hope_for_vui_kong.html
ReplyDelete26 September 2012: On July 9 this year, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean announced in Parliament that new laws would be drafted by the year-end to abolish the mandatory death penalty for some cases of drug trafficking and murder.
Teo said that under the new laws, judges will have a discretion to impose life imprisonment in lieu of the death penalty in cases of non-intentional murders and drug trafficking where the trafficker only plays the role of a courier or “mule” (that excludes kingpins, producers, distributors, retailers and funders of the drug trade and their abettors) and he has cooperated with the CNB in a substantive way or he has a mental disability which has substantially impaired his appreciation of the gravity of the act.
Teo added that executions have also been deferred since July last year when a general review of the mandatory death penalty laws commenced.
Currently, there are 35 inmates on death row in Singapore – seven for murder and the rest for drug offences.
It was also reported that the new laws will have retrospective application in that the 35 convicts, including Yong, can apply for a review of their sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment.
This is indeed a significant milestone in the criminal justice system of Singapore considering that the mandatory death penalty for murder and drug trafficking was respectively introduced in Singapore in 1871 and 1975.
Teo explained that this was to ensure that the laws keep pace with the evolving operational landscape and societal changes.
The Singapore Law Society, which has been advocating for abolition of the mandatory death penalty for all offences, hailed this as a historic moment for the criminal justice system in Singapore as it represented a significant step in humanising criminal law.
But the two conditions to be met in the case of drug trafficking are rather stringent.
Teo stressed that the amendment is aimed at, inter alia, dismantling of drug syndicates.
“If the couriers give us substantive cooperation leading to concrete outcomes, such as the dismantling of syndicates or the arrest or prosecution of syndicate members, that will help us in our broader enforcement effort,” said Teo.
He went on to explain why Singapore first imposed a mandatory death penalty threshold for heroin at 15g which have the same weight of just a few 50-cent coins.
“In street form in Singapore, at a typical purity level of 2.3%, 15g of pure diamorphine is equivalent to some 2,200 straws of heroin worth S$66,000, based on each straw having a gross weight of about 0.3g and street price of about S$30. This quantity is enough to feed the addiction of more than 300 abusers for a week,” said Teo.
“In such cases, the death penalty is imposed, given the harm caused by these drug traffickers, and the numbers of lives they destroy.”
Law Minister K. Shanmugam also lamented that what is never in the headlines is the level of sadness and impact these crimes have on the social fabric of society.
He stressed that any changes must strike the right balance as crime must be deterred and society must be protected against criminals.
“Criminals should receive their just desserts. But justice can be tempered with mercy and, where appropriate, offenders should be given a second chance”, said Shanmugam.
Indeed, justice and mercy are two virtues which often conflict with one another.
Abraham Lincoln once said mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. On the other hand, he also admitted: “He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan!”
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/legal/general_news/glimmer_of_hope_for_vui_kong.html
ReplyDelete26 September 2012: In response to this review by Singapore, Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail revealed that his chambers have been doing research since late last year with the view of abolishing the mandatory death penalty for drug couriers.
As at Feb 28 this year, there are 860 convicts on death row.
It is regrettable that this was not made known earlier, thus giving the impression that the laws of our neighbour are more progressive than ours.
That is why our government must expedite the establishment of an independent law reform commission to review all the antiquated laws of our country.
Personally, I support the abolition of the mandatory death penalty. But that is not to say that the death penalty should be abolished altogether. All it means is that judges should be given discretion to decide whether to sentence a convict to death or life imprisonment.
Perhaps the doing away of the mandatory death penalty can even help the prosecution secure more convictions as judges are generally reluctant to impose the death sentence in the absence of any overwhelming evidence.
Currently, if a person is convicted of an offence which carries the mandatory death penalty, it is really pointless for the defence counsel to even make any mitigation plea because whatever he is going to say will not make any difference as the judge will have no option but to sentence the convict to death.
By untying the judges’ hands, justice can be better served and every convict of a capital offence has a hope that he may not die if he truly does not deserve to die.
Further, unlike other sentences, a death sentence erroneously made is irreversible.
In the words of John Ronald Tolkien of The Fellowship of the Ring, “Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
However, until Singapore has passed the new law, it is still too early to tell, without sight of the exact wording of the statutory provision, whether Yong falls within this category.